In memory of Vladimir Vysotsky: Taganka Museum to be shortly overhauled

25 January marks the 80th birth anniversary of the actor, poet and musician, Vladimir Vysotsky (1938-1980) who has always been wildly popular in Russia. On the eve of this anniversary, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin visited the Vysotsky House on Taganka. Mr Sobyanin showed the museum’s exhibition to the head of state and discussed long-term development plans for this facility.

“We have received many new rare things over the years. The museum can now display 50 percent more exhibits than before. As there is not enough space, we have decided to increase the size of the museum by 100 percent inside the building. Reconstruction and new architectural solutions will make this possible,” Mr Sobyanin pointed out.

The city has upgraded nearby streets, and the adjacent territory has been improved, he added. “Although the project remains incomplete, the local landscape has changed drastically. Next year, we will complete the façades and plant additional trees,” Mr Sobyanin noted.

Nikita Vysotsky, the son of Vladimir Vysotsky and director of the Vysotsky House on Taganka, informed President Putin about the museum’s technical innovations, including an interactive multimedia screen allowing visitors to obtain detailed information about exhibits and also to learn more about the life of Vladimir Vysotsky. “A combination of cutting-edge exhibition technology and authenticity is very important,” Vysotsky Jr. added.

Poet, actor, singer

Vladimir Vysotsky (1938-1980) died young, but people will remember his vivid life for a long time. One of the most outstanding episodes of Taganka Theatre’s history is linked with his creative work. Vysotsky starred in numerous films, including such blockbusters as Place of the Meeting cannot be Changed; Vertical; Two Comrades Served Together; The Tale of how Tsar Peter the Great Married off His Moor; Bad Good Man; Brief Encounters etc., are rightfully considered the gems of the Soviet cinema industry. Vysotsky’s songs and poems also remain highly popular. Moreover, his creative heritage continues to attract new spectators, readers and listeners.

Many people in the city of Moscow cherish the memory of the great actor. In 1988, to mark his 50th birth anniversary, a memorial plaque was unveiled at 28 Malaya Gruzinskaya Street where he had once lived. There are also memorial plaques on the wall of a maternity home on Shchepkina Street (3rd Meshchanckaya Street before 1962) where he was born and at 15 Bolshoi Karetny Pereulok where young Vysotsky lived. Later, Vysotsky immortalised this street in one of his songs. Monuments to Vysotsky by sculptor Gennady Raspopov are located on Strastnoi Boulevard and in the Taganka Theatre’s courtyard.

Museum life: guided tours, exhibitions, soirees

In the early 1990s, the State Cultural Centre/Vysotsky House on Taganka opened in a 19th century residential dwelling conveniently situated very close by to the Taganka Theatre. The building was completely renovated in 2003. On 29 July 2015, the Nizhny and Verkhny Tagansky pereuloks where the museum is located were renamed Vysotskogo Street.

Today, the permanent exhibition Vladimir Vysotsky: Life and Creative Work (1938-1980), including the poet’s memorial office, has an area of 280 square metres. Vysotsky House also has a theatre-concert hall. The poet’s son, Nikita Vysotsky, and 28 other people run the museum.

Its depository has 52,700 exhibits, including 29,500 permanent ones. The private archive of Vysotsky and his family, including documents, manuscripts, photos, photo negatives, applied-decorative art items, pictures, drawings and coins, is the mainstay of the museum’s collection. Museum employees mostly collect material providing an insight into the poet’s biography as well as creative work.

In 2017, the museum workers conducted 244 guided tours and organised 14 exhibitions and about 300 other events, with 66,400 people attending them. Two traveling exhibitions attracted 18,000 visitors. Last year, the museum organised 50 soirees, concerts, roundtable discussions, projects and presentations involving 6,400 people.

The main events included the Vladimir Vysotsky/My Own Track annual awards ceremony, events marking the poet’s 79th birth anniversary, Days of Moscow’s Historical and Cultural Heritage, Museum Night, Library Night, Arts Night and the 4th Science-Practical Seminar Vysotsky’s Poetry and the 21th Century. Museum experts also took part in the Moscow Cultural Forum and presented a new exhibition there and they organised an anniversary concert called Hello, My Dear Spectators!

Renovation: multimedia technology and new exhibits

Today, the museum’s small exhibition is unable to accommodate its collection that has expanded several times over. On 1 February, Vysotsky House will close for renovation, and a new exhibition will also be established.

Builders will upgrade the floors, the walls plus the ceiling. They will install new ticket offices, a gift shop and a cloakroom. They will replace the lighting system, the roof cornice, billboard stands and the museum sign. Most importantly, the permanent exhibition’s area will grow by 150 percent to reach 567 square metres. It will have seven sections, as compared to the three which it has today.

The number of exhibits will increase from 937 to 1,384. Out of this number, the Russian State Literature and Art Archive will contribute over 500 exhibits. The exhibition will have 651 items from among Vysotsky’s personal effects, including previously unseen guitars, icons, autographs and Paris auction lots. Experts will restore both the interior of the living-room as well as the kitchen using genuine furniture from the poet’s flat inside a building on Malaya Gruzinskaya Street.

Experts will focus on establishing a multimedia section with the texts of his poems and songs, videos and sound recordings, as well as Vysotsky’s photos. Using touchscreens visitors will be able go back in time and listen to recordings, watch videos on the screen, and leaf through autographs plus various documents. The multimedia section will have over 1,000 pieces of audio and photo material. Cutting-edge technology will make the exhibition more dynamic and more accessible for people of all generations. Vysotsky’s creative work will be adapted to the younger generation for the first time. There are plans to open the new exhibition in July 2018.

Improving Vysotskogo Street

In 2017, the city upgraded a block of flats close by to Taganka Theatre, including the Vysotskogo, Verkhnyaya and Nizhnyaya Radishchevskaya, Yauzskaya and Nikoloyamskaya streets, under the My Street programme. Granite paving stones covering an area of 2,500 square metres were put down on Vysotskogo Street. Another 1,800 square metres were coated with asphalt. Workers laid cable ditches measuring one kilometre long and also installed curbstones with a length of over 1,000 metres, as well as 12 cable wells and 27 lampposts. This spring, there are plans to create lawns with an area of 3,000 square metres on Vysotskogo Street and to plant shrubs there.

Concerts, exhibitions, performances to mark Vysotsky’s birth anniversary

The city is to host over 30 events, including concerts, exhibitions, performances and film screenings, soirees and literary-musical programmes, in the run-up to Vysotsky’s 80th birth anniversary. 

On 25 January, Vysotsky House on Taganka will host a presentation of the photo album Vysotsky, the book Vysotsky in Georgia and the publication Vysotsky: Research and Materials, as well as a soiree dedicated to Vladimir Vysotsky in a home-concert format and the national festival-competition I Love Therefore I Live. The exhibition Of Course, I’ll be Back runs until 31 January.

On 26 January, 2 and 14 February, Taganka Theatre will debut with its Run, Alice, Run directed by Maxim Didenko. The play is based on the radio drama theatre performance Alice in Wonderland which Vysotsky took part in.

On 25 January, the Pushkin Moscow Drama Theatre will show theonly performance Gorky, The Lower Depths, Vysotsky directed by Boris Dyachenko. The State Kremlin Palace will show the performance Vysotsky: A Legend is Born. In turn, the Eisenstein Cinema Art Library will screen the 1973 film Good Bad Man starring Vysotsky as zoologist Von Kohren.

On 26 January, Channel One will broadcast the My Own Track awards ceremony that was instituted in 1997 on the initiative of Vysotsky Jr.

Taganka Theatre: Hamlet and Lyubimov

Between 1964 and 1980, Vysotsky worked at the Taganka Drama and Comedy Theatre. He played over 20 roles, including Hamlet, one of his most famous roles. The actor became one of the theatre’s symbols in its heyday when it was managed by Yury Lyubimov.

In 2017, an interactive exhibition was installed in the Taganka Theatre lobby in the run-up to the outstanding stage director’s 100thbirth anniversary. And Lyubimov’s office was turned into a museum. The exhibition has various mementos, including furniture, a piano, desk lamps, books, Vysotsky’s guitar, and the office walls have been autographed by celebrities from floor to ceiling. 

Between 2015-2017, with financing from the city budget accident-prevention and restoration work was carried out on the Taganka Theatre. Experts put down cement on the ground, reinforced the building’s brick walls, and also upgraded the exterior, the roof plus the theatre’s entrance. Theatre equipment has also been upgraded, its smaller (historical) stage, lobbies, green rooms and other facilities have been renovated. The theatre now has fire-proof doors and water-resistant walls in the basement and on the main floor.

The upgraded main stage’s technical potential has been expanded considerably. The stage now has rod-type rigging and hoisting systems, individual lifts, elevating platforms and automated lighting control systems.